The motto on Somerset County’s official seal is “Semper Eadem” — Latin for “always the same.”

That may no longer be the case after the board that oversees development approved Thursday what stands to become one of the largest solar farms in the Eastern United States.

The outcome was a bit of a foregone conclusion since the Maryland Public Service Commission had signed off on the facility back in December. By law, its decisions on solar projects take precedent over local ones.

Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. of Canada plans to generate up to 150 megawatts of power from arrays scattered across several large plots of land south of Princess Anne. Construction on the first phase of 75 megawatts is tentatively scheduled to begin in May and go online by the end of the year.

The largest existing solar operation east of the Mississippi River is a 75 megawatt plant in southeast Florida, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. A handful boasting 100 megawatts or more are under development.

"I think people underestimate the solar resource that's here" in Maryland, said Steven Hitchinson, Algonquin's project manager. "Even in this county that's part of this state, the amount of energy you get is still within an acceptable range."

Many communities across the country have struggled to come to grips with the influx of sprawling solar farms. The new wave of construction has been made possible by the cost of the electricity they generate getting more competitive with coal, oil and other traditional energy sources, experts say.

Farther down the Delmarva Peninsula, elected officials in Northampton County last month put the brakes on a large solar facility.

The Board of Supervisors raised concerns about how much the county would benefit financially from the Hecate Energy solar project northeast of Eastville. At 20 megawatts, its output would be just below the threshold at which state regulations require such facilities to pay local property taxes.

At their meeting Thursday, Somerset planning commission members sought stronger assurances that the panels would be screened from view. They asked, for instance, that the 6-foot chain-link fences enclosing the arrays be able to accommodate vinyl sheaths in case the 40-foot-wide swath of bushes and trees die.

Algonquin is buying or leasing a total of nearly 1,000 acres of land. Most of the land consists of former corn and soybean fields.

The arrays are set to rise south of Princess Anne on five separate properties, which would stream power to a substation on a fourth piece of land on Perry Road.

At issue on the county level was the project’s site plan, its blueprint for development. But even in that limited role, Somerset officials have little power to wield, said Jim Porter, the county’s attorney.

His comments came earlier in the evening during a debate over a separate solar project, a 40-acre array on Plantation Road east of Crisfield.

“We basically as a planning commission have no authority to stop this project,” he said, noting that the Public Service Commission could simply overturn an unfavorable vote. “Your state legislators in their wisdom decided this (solar energy) was a priority to be done.”

In the Plantation Road case, the commission postponed a vote to get more information about how it would be screened.

About 20 residents came to register their qualms with the Plantation project, and all but a handful left before the Algonquin case began. One of the few comments came from Ron DeClement, a Princess Anne resident.

“We want the county to stay rural, natural looking. We don’t want to see thousands of feet of vinyl fence," he told the board.

It was a quieter resolution than the project's earlier incarnation faced.

Pioneer Green Energy, a subsidiary of Great Bay Wind, had plans to build 500-foot-tall turbines to generate wind energy. But it changed tack and decided to pursue solar instead last year. The switch came after residents raised health and safety concerns, and military officials warned that the could interfere with radar systems at the Patuxent River Naval Air facility across the Chesapeake Bay.

The company sold the rights to the project to Algonquin in December.

The energy produced by the plant won't be used locally. It's already under contract to be sold to the U.S. General Services Administration.

But the firm projects it will generate something else for Maryland's poorest county: about $2.5 million in tax revenue.

The commission approved the site plans for five of the six properties. The sixth, at 10131 Arden Station Road, was held back by Algonquin and is expected to come back before the board in April.

Contact reporter Jeremy Cox at 410-845-4630 or on Twitter @Jeremy_Cox.